Eight Karawang firms sign labor agreements

Eight Karawang firms sign labor agreements

KARAWANG, West Java (JP): Eight companies yesterday signed
Collective Labor Agreements with their employees.

Yesterday's signing has added to the eight companies here
which have concluded similar agreements with their employees.
Four companies employ more than 100 workers and another four
employ fewer than this number.

Director General of Industrial Relations and Control of the
Ministry of Manpower Suwarto has called on other companies to
take similar steps.

"A labor agreement reflects good communications between
employers and their workers because it has a crucial role in the
efforts to avoid disputes," he said.

According to him, companies which have concluded such an
agreement, have experienced fewer disputes compared to those
without it.

"Experience tells us that companies which have a labor
agreement shared only 5 percent of the total disputes in the
country," he added.

However, Suwarto said that companies should put good
communication above other matters, including a labor agreement
and large salaries.

"Some big companies with high wage levels are not free from
labor disputes," according to the director general. Citing an
example, he said, HongKongBank in Jakarta is still to solve its
dispute with the workers over the revision of a labor agreement.

Suwarto also witnessed yesterday the inauguration of
committees on the health and occupational safety of 12 local
companies.

The committee members, who include company representatives and
workers, have the task of giving guidance to workers about the
potential problems in these areas.

To date there are 67 companies in this regency which have set
up such committees.

During the last two years, Karawang has rapidly become an
industrial town although 50 percent of the 720 industries
operating here employ fewer than 25 workers each.

And according to data at the local office of the Ministry of
Manpower all the companies only employ about 69,000 people.

Among them only 36 have units of the All Indonesia Workers
Union Federation. (03)